When jurors reached a verdict this yr within the trial of Alex Murdaugh, a fourth-generation South Carolina lawyer, they discovered him responsible of murdering his spouse and youthful son. However looming giant over the trial was one other tragic demise: that of Mallory Seaside, a 19-year-old lady who was killed in a ship crash involving the useless son years earlier.
The authorities mentioned that the son, Paul Murdaugh, had been driving the boat when it crashed in 2019, and a lawsuit introduced on behalf of Ms. Seaside’s household — threatening to disclose the lies and thefts surrounding Alex Murdaugh’s funds — was a part of the tightening circle of occasions that was closing in on Mr. Murdaugh within the weeks earlier than the murders.
This week, Ms. Seaside’s household agreed to settle that lawsuit with a co-defendant, the house owners of a fuel station comfort retailer that bought alcohol to an underage Paul Murdaugh — who was utilizing his older brother’s ID — on the night time of the crash. The $15 million settlement, which should nonetheless be authorized by a decide, comes on the eve of a civil trial in opposition to Alex Murdaugh and the corporate, Parker’s Kitchen, that had been scheduled for subsequent month.
P.Okay. Shere, a lawyer for Parker’s, mentioned in a press release that the corporate had been at an obstacle in dealing with a joint civil trial with Mr. Murdaugh.